Ten Poets series – build a bundle!

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We were all at home or far behind when it happened.

Ten Poets series – build a bundle!

edited by Jon Stone and Kirsten Irving

Build a bundle of at least 3 different Ten Poets titles and get 25% off your haul! (discount applied at checkout)

Sometimes the hero you need is not the one you expect. In these cross-genre books, we’ve handed poets wild new assignments: defending their cities from monsters, spinning ghost stories, solving grisly crimes, rocketing to the Moon, committing acts of piracy and surviving a vampire’s keep. And being poets, they’ve gone about their missions in intriguing and offbeat ways…

Please note: Due to customs issues, we can no longer ship directly to Europe. European friends, please order from our distributors at Inpress or through your local bookshop.

Categories: 10 Poets, anthologies, Cross-Genre, Folklore & Myth, History & Satire, Love & Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction Tags: 10 Poets, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, crime, detective, ecopoetry, Edinburgh, environmental, erotic, folklore, ghosts, Glasgow, history, Ipswich, LGBTQI+, Liverpool, London, love, monsters, murder mystery, mythology, pirates, poetry, queer, Reykjavik, space, storytelling, Truro, vampires

Description

Description

10 Poets is a series of four books, each of which sets a decet of poets on a new course, turning their skills to new and surprising ends. Each title in the series takes an existing genre of storytelling and blends in poetic elements. Whether they’re slaying kaiju monsters, spooking us out, solving murders or seducing icons from history, our game bards shapeshift, time-travel and stoke the campfire in their own poetic ways.

Ten Poets Defend Their Cities from Giant, Strange Beasts

takes its cue from the nuclear anxieties of the Godzilla franchise. Our fearless poets battle monsters in many forms, from raging waters to gentrification to music icons gone very bad indeed. Grab whatever weapon you have to hand and join their party for the showdown. 72pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-33-8

Ten Poets Tell Their Favourite Ghost Story

sees our poets dance from classic fable to urban legend, taking in a little techno-horror along the way. Eerie tales are made all the more uncanny by poetic cadence, urging you on, down that path, nudging you further through that cursed book, tempting you to repeat that name once more in the mirror… 60pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-34-5

Ten Poets Get to the Bottom of Some Grisly Crimes

shows the famous fondness poets have for patterns, games and intrigue. Open the case files within and witness bodies in the forest, brutalised landscapes and nuns covering up more than usual. Less Randall & Hopkirk, more Rimbaud & Hopkins, if you ask us… 72pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-35-2

Ten Poets Charm the Pants off Ten Historical Figures

sees our bards become time-travelling Nell Gwynnes, seeking and seducing historical crushes. Will they meet with ecstasy or agony? Slip inside to find out. 62pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-35-2

Ten Poets Travel to the Dark Side of the Moon

sees our intrepid poets set off for the stars, testing their bodies, their resolve and their navigation skills. From musical legends to mythology to Mare Frigoris and back, they’re on a mission to bring back the finest lunar verse. 60pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-39-0

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder

sees ten more poets set out with cutlasses and compasses, high spirits and troubled pasts to chart depths unknown. 60pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-40-6

Ten Poets Spend the Night in a Vampire’s Castle

sees ten more poets venture, nightsticks, nerves and desires aloft, through the corridors and catacombs of a mysterious host’s lair. 64pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-41-3

Contributors

Kat Addis, Nick Asbury, Vasiliki Albedo, Sophie Blacklock, Tom Bland, Helen Bowell, Penny Boxall, Emma Brown, Jacob Burgess Rollo, Matthew Caley, Heather Chapman, Tim Tim Cheng, Emmy Clarke, G.B. Clarkson, James Coghill, Swithun Cooper, Luigi Coppola, Anne-Laure Coxam, Adam Crothers, Al Crow, Abbie Day, Kym Deyn, Kat Dixon, Emma Du Toit, Matthias Mūnkey Ediger, Jen Feroze, Elizabeth Gibson, Giles Goodland, Jem K. Hubbard, Andy Jackson, Livia Franchini, Matthew Haigh, Rachel Jeffcoat, Aaron Kent, Mathew Lyons, Rowan Lyster, Nikki Marrone, Kate Moore, Nora Nadjarian, Alfie Nawaid, Helena Nelson, Rebecca Ostler, Abigail Ottley, Luke Palmer, Caleb Parkin, Megan Pattie, Ilse Pedler, Amy Jo Philip, Clare Pollard, Richard Price, Emma Reay, Kevin Reinhardt, Patrick Davidson Roberts, Imogen Robertson, Lark Sabre, Freya Sacksen, Tom Sastry, Dorian Shire, Candy Smellie, Danny Snelson, Nathaniel Spain, Catherine Spooner, Chloe Stopa-Hunt, Róisín Tierney, Becky Varley-Winter, Sean Wai Keung, Alice Willitts, James Womack, Erica Wright, Jerrold Yam

Vampires vs. Pirates

A zombie Lego pirate and Lego vampire clash swords in from of two books: Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder and Ten Poets Spend the Night in a Vampire's Castle

From the ‘Foreword’ to Ten Poets Spend the Night at a Vampire’s Castle:

A tall figure descends the stairs at the centre of the great hall. He is the very picture of calculated languor and boredom, though passion burns in the depths of his bright, dissimilar eyes. He wears a frock coat like a second skin. His open shirt collar erupts from it like the spathe of an arum lily. He is himself peculiarly pale – not the pallor of death, but that of a beautiful alabaster vase. There are fine blue veins upon his features. He is possessed of a boldly prominent brow and delicately cut nose. The hairline recedes around the temples, but the hair itself is dark and thickly curled. The smile strikes at you like a knife – it is contemptuous, almost vindictive. Vampire? Or poet?

And from the ‘Cast Off’ of Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder:

The last poem o’ this here book, Jim-Lad Womack’s ‘Admire Devaluates Scavenger (6, 2, 9, 8)’, finds sixteenth-century Spanish writer Cervantes poised o’er ‘is most famous novel, Don Quixote, wonderin’ ‘ow it be that such a blood-soaked thief an’ murderer as the pirate Blackbeard e’er came to be considered as loveable rogue. Indeed, mateys, piracy be a topic that raises somethin’ of a double quandary fer poets. On the one ‘and, it be the stuff o’ children’s parties an’ cheap fancy dress. Insufficient gravitas, ye might say. Pantomime patois twice as gratin’ as this one here. Parrots, posturin’, plastic-an’-elastic eyepatches (I once worn two o’ these, one on each o’ me good eyes, while steerin’ a canal boat, but that be a tale for another time). On the other ‘ook, if ye lean toward ‘istorical accuracy, all be grimness an’ squalor.

These are the latest two titles in our ‘10 Poets’ series, starring 20 poets we’ve never published before, many of them fresh to the scene. For those unfamiliar with the series, the premise is all there in the title of each book: contributing poets adopt a persona — lusty corsair, say, or hapless prey of some blood-sucking creature — in order to explore all manner of themes through a somewhat otherworldly lens. That’s it — plus a foreword/introduction and a surprise appendix. We’re seven books into the run, and we do think they look rather good together:

But it’s the poems, of course, which really count. Try a little spoonful of Nikki Marrone’s ‘Terms and Conditions Apply’, from Vampire’s Castle:

The invitation arrived folded in midnight. No envelope, just a note pressed to my chest: You’ve been chosen. Glow accordingly. I must have said yes. There’s no other way to explain how I got here. The hours between then and now were soft and slippery, like the ones gone missing when you look up and realise the light has changed. Now I’m seated between a duchess and a woman who used to be an actress (though no one mentions that anymore). The candlelight makes everything soft: the velvet walls, the blush on their cheeks, even the wine, which tastes like memory. “She arrived last week,” someone says, slicing a fig with the edge of her fork.

Delicious! You thought the poets would, in every case, find themselves alone with the vampire in question? The contents ae wilder than that. As noted in the foreword, “oddly enough […] this might be, as much as anything, a book of love poems.” And what about Prowl the Seas? Well, the idea of ‘plunder’ has been interpreted very cleverly, and while we do have a fair number of doubloon-addled ruffians aboard, there’s also room for poetry that plunges into the ‘broken, bent and battered’. Abigail Ottley’s ‘The Sea Always Wins, or, The Ageing Wreck Diver Speaks of the Ocean’ begins as follows:

The sea is an indifferent lover. She may be your delight, your mistress, your beloved, but she’s not the great prize you imagine. You, in your passion, your tender obsession, are smitten, held fast in her thrall. You see nothing but her beauty, her unplumbed depths, her colours endlessly shifting. But she is nothing if not sly, and her heart is full of perfidy and guile …

You can read the rest of the poem for free, on our website. Look out for more samples from our books on this Substack in the future, as well as further insights into the pieces and the processes behind their creation. In the meantime, choose your poison: grog from the belly of a hijacked sloop, or claret from the cobwebbed bottle cellar? Order it into your local ~~booze-stop~~ bookshop and help us stay afloat!

And if you are yourself a poet, check out our next calls for submissions to the 10 Poets series, closing 28 February 2026!

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder

“

Behind the thin glass, the wind chanted not warnings but invitations…

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder - Image 2

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder

£8.00

edited by Jon Stone and Kirsten Irving

Release date: 10 September 2025

They’re done with the land, its reckless rulers and its unjust laws! Now ten poets set sail under the bold black flag, as pirate queens, gentleman corsairs and salty dogs, to sing shanties most boisterously and comb for treasure. But what kind of treasure? And what varieties of creature await them in the deep? And what happens when the rum runs dry? Is the journey really what it seems to be? Did they ever, in fact, escape the shore?

60pp, ISBN 978-1-909560-40-6

Please note: Due to customs issues, we can no longer ship directly to Europe. European friends, please order from our distributors at Inpress or through your local bookshop.

SKU: 10PPROWL Categories: 10 Poets, Books, Folklore & Myth, History & Satire, Uncategorized Tags: 10 Poets, pirates

Description

Description

10 Poets is a series of books in which poets are invited to turn their skills to new and surprising ends.

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder sees ten more poets set out with cutlasses and compasses, high spirits and troubled pasts to chart depths unknown.

Contributors

Emma Brown, Jacob Burgess Rollo, Luigi Coppola, Emma Du Toit, Matthias Mūnkey Ediger, Jem K. Hubbard, Alfie Nawaid, Rebecca Ostler, Abigail Ottley, James Womack

Submissions call: Vampires and Pirates!

What’s that on the horizon? Is it a bat? A ship? No, it’s our double open call for the next two titles in our Ten Poets series! Launch your best words our way for:

Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder and Ten Poets Spend the Night in a Vampire’s Castle Decorative

If you’re not familiar with the Ten Poets series, each title dips into a beloved pop-culture theme, from murder mysteries to ghost stories to erotica to monster movies. We want you to think creatively and show us your own take on the subject each time. Do you discover something strange? Do you think about your life on Earth? Do you make it to the moon at all? Submissions should have the general character of a poem or poem-adjacent text, but they do not have to be straightforward lyric pieces. You could create a prose poem, vignette, short lyric essay – in fact, we encourage you to think in terms of longer, looser forms (up to 500 words). This follows the trend established over our last eight anthologies, which mixed and combined poetry with elements of essay, guidebook, puzzle, flash fiction and so on. For more visual pieces, please note that all pages will be printed in black and white, and will be in portrait format.

Check out the submissions call for more information and FAQs, and feel free to email us with questions.

Deadline: 18 June

Submissions

SUBMISSIONS OPEN UNTIL 28 FEBRUARY 2026 FOR

Ten Poets Do Their Bit for the Secret Service

Ten Poets Lose Themselves in the Land of the Fae

Read the full call here!

Not your thing? Please check back here, follow us on social media or join our newsletter for future calls.

General Submissions FAQs

Do you publish solo poetry collections?

No, we don’t. Sidekick specialises in collaborative and mixed-media work, with strong themes and blurred genre boundaries. Have a look at our other books to get an idea of what we do.

How about if I just send it anyway?

Please don’t! As a team of two people (working jobs alongside running the press), we don’t have time to reply to unsolicited collections sent to us. There are many incredible presses who publish single-author collections. You can find a good starter list on the National Poetry Library’s website.

When is your next submissions call?

We release new calls via our newsletter (see bottom of this page) and through our social media accounts on Instagram, Threads and Bluesky. We look forward to seeing your work!

Tag: pirates